02: Amazon’s Illegal Union Busting

That overworked, they're constantly monitored, and they don't have job security. To combat this, Amazon workers across the world have begun to organize. Many of them want a union. If they were unionized, it would give the workers more power to negotiate better working conditions, job security, and increased wages. Now, if you're unfamiliar with what a union is, I don't blame you. These days, workers unions are far less common than they used to be, although they do seem to

be making a sort of comeback in recent years. Anyway, let me explain briefly what they are. Ensure. Unions are groups of workers that come together in a bid to get a better deal at their place of work. They're not against working, they're not being lazy. They just want a fairer time at their jobs. Where unions are active, the workers have somewhere outside of the company they're employed by to help sort out any issues and to build

a better work community. Members usually elect union representatives that they can go to to solve problems, or alternatively, people volunteered to be the rep Often, unions give the people at the bottom of the workplace some leverage over those at the top. If you listen to the previous episode, you can probably imagine why Amazon workers have been pushing to unionize in many different places. It will also probably be no surprise that Amazon is trying desperately to stop

the unions. When a company actively tries to disrupt union organizing, it's often referred to as union busting. This is something Amazon knows all about. Eighteen and internal anti union Amazon video was leaked onto the internet. The video is essentially a training guide on how to stop workers unionizing. The video was sent to managers at the company Whole Foods, amidst the initial stages of worker organization around June. Whole Foods was brought up by Amazon in seventeen for urteen

point seven billion dollars. The anti union video is forty five minutes long, and it's split up into six different parts. The whole thing is animated. It's quite surreal. It's pretty odd. It takes place in a two D Amazon warehouse, where the narrator says, the purpose of the video is quote specifically designed to give you the tools that you need for success when it comes to labor organizing end quote.

Now I don't mean to sound shreal or exaggerated here, but there really is something a little bit or well Ian in the way this video portrays itself. It's essentially a guide that Amazon has created to help recognize when workers unions are beginning to form in a workplace, but not so they can help them, so they can stop them. Yet the language used in the video acts as if

it's somehow an ally of the workers. When they say they're helping give companies the tools they need for success when it comes to label organizing, what they mean by success is success in basically crushing unions. Now, let's have a listen to some of the internal anti union Amazon video. Welcome. We're excited to have you with this training specifically designed to give you the tools that you need for success

when it comes to labor organizing. During this course will cover several important topics such as our position on unions, associate rights, signs of employee disengagement, and how do identify, escalate and address associate concerns. We are not anti union, but we are not neutral either. We will boldly defend our direct relationship with associates as best for the associate,

the business, and our shareholders. Right. Notice what they just said that they're not anti union, but they're not neutral either. Obviously not as they wouldn't be making these training video. So they're saying they're not t union and they're not neutral in a video about training employees to try and suss out and stop unionizing in the workplace. Again, not to sound all dramatic, but this is literally double speak. It's the way politicians talk when they're defending the indefensible

in the media. This is bullshit. They're trying to soften the blow of what is clearly an anti union training video, and frankly, to say otherwise is a bit of an insult, but that's the way they framed it. Anyway, Let's listen on. We do not believe unions are in the best interest of our customers are shareholders are most importantly our associates. Our business model is built upon speed, innovation and customer obsession. Customer obsession things that are generally not associated with the unions.

When we lose sight of those critical focus areas, we jeopardize everyone's job security. Okay, so they've just said that that everyone's job security at Amazon is in jeopardy when speed in a ation and customer obsession are lost site of Now, the way this too d Amazon presentation reels that off, it's quite easy to miss the point. That

sentence seems fairly innocuous the way they read it. However, in my opinion here, the subtext of that sentence is this, if a union gains power within the workplace and they prioritize anything other than speed, innovation and customer obsession, people might get fired. They don't want unions focusing on anything else like workers safety, improved conditions, and better wages. That would take time away from efficiency. And if that happens, people are going to get fired. Now, I could be

very wrong. Like I said, that's just my opinion of the subtext there, but I'm not sure how else to take it. Remember, as well, this was an internal video at Amazon not meant to see the light of day in the public. I think that gives you more context to what's being said here. Also, anyway, let's hear more.

We don't bad mouth unions in general, but we will speak openly with associates about unions, including any specific concerns about particular unions involved in organizing, and we share our preference for a direct working relationship frequently and boldly, even when no organizing activity has occurred. You will learn about the warning signs most commonly associated with early union organizing, as well as other warning signs that could indicate associate disengagement,

vulnerability to organizing, or early organizing activity. While employees have the right to organize, we have a right and responsibility to share our position that a direct working relationship is better for the customer, the company, and the associate. In order to be able to do that effectively, it is critical that we recognize the early warning signs of potential organizing and escalate concerns promptly, warning signs earlier new organizing,

vulnerability to organize. In the way Amazon is talking about this, it sounds like they think unions are some kind of disease. I don't know. It's quite odd listening to it like this. Now. I get Amazon is a private company. They have the right to dislike and even hate unions if they want to. But as you can see, this training video shows that their private face doesn't tally up with their public face. Shock horror. Who's surprised? Now? Amazon presents this happy, people,

friendly corporation typeface, but this just isn't that. This next bit, though, I think, is really quite dark. If you see warning signs of potential organizing, notify you're building hr M and GM site leader immediately. Hr M s and g M site leaders should notify their assigned e R managers or

e ER principle immediately. The most obvious signs would include use of words associated with unions, are union movements like living wage or steward petitions, or other concerted activity, such as an associate purporting to speak on behalf of his or her coworkers when raising concerns. Union graffiti, union t shirts, hats, jackets, or other clothing union flyers and union visitors in or

near the parking lot. Some signs are less obvious than finding the actual union flyer, but they can still indicate associate disengagement, which is itself a warning sign for potential organizing.

Examples include associates who normally aren't connected to each other suddenly hanging out together, associates who are close suddenly stopped speaking to each other, groups of associate scatter when approached by management, increased associate negativity, anger or confrontation, unusual complaints or change in passion or detail around complaints, unusual interest and policies, benefits, employee lists or other company information, or

any other associate behavior that is out of character. For example, an associate who normally leaves promptly begins hanging out in the brake room for an or after work each day. In order to recognize warning signs, it is critical that you know what an associates normal behavior looks like. Often it is the change in behavior that is the warning sign more than the actual behavior itself. Now, if that doesn't sound authoritarian, I don't know what does. Their training

and encouraging workers to literally spy on each other. They suggest monitoring their behavior, their clothes, and even what words they use to try and work out if they're involved in union organizing or not, and they say they're not anti union. At the end there it goes as far as to suggest that manages second guess the motivations of the workers by watching to see if anything changes in their behavior, even if they have not said anything regarding unionizing.

In order to recognize warning signs, it is critical that you know what an associates normal behavior looks like. Often it is the change in behavior that is the warning sign more than the actual behavior itself. That and say that workers must inform on each other if they spot any of this behavior. It all sounds a little bit too much like the Stasi to me. And remember, this is just a company, This is not a government, this is not a police force. Seems a little bit over

the top. Something else are noticed, Only just at the end there is that in the video of this Amazon presentation. You know, I said it was to the animated the guy that is giving all this information to the viewer, which would be the members of the team that Amazon is trying to train too effectively union bust. The character is actually a worker on the warehouse floor in the Amazon warehouse. Maybe that was intentional, maybe not, I don't know. It seems pretty fucked up to me. He's even wearing

a little high of his jacket. There are conveyor belts everywhere. It's an Amazon worker telling the managers how to stop him from organizing madness. To get a better understanding of where the Amazon unions are at right now, and also to hear about the Amazon union busting tactics, I spoke to journalists Dave Jamieson. He is a labor reporter for her Post. Back in the day, there was a labor

reporter on pretty much every newspaper, every outlet. Nowadays it's more rare to see them, but it's a very important job, especially within journalism. It helps shine a light on bad practices as the ones we've just heard of in regards to Amazon. Let's see what you have to say. Let's let's kind of um begin with the union, the unionizing efforts that Amazon workers have been involved in. Okay, so um.

In the US, Amazon does not have unionized workers. Amazon deals with with unions overseas in some places, um like like in Europe. But in the US they've managed to keep unions out as a lot of kind. But he's managed to do these days are our unionization rate in the US is just six percent in the private sector, A lot of American workers these days could work their whole careers and and never be in a in a

in a union. We used to have much higher union density, like after World War Two, it was up into the thirty some odd percent um. It's much lower now and that's in part because the employers have gotten you know, more aggressive, I think over the years in terms of trying to beat back union drives. And so it was kind of no mystery that you know, Amazon wanted to keep unions out like any any kind of big growing

employer in the US. So it came as a as a bit of a surprise when when this union, the retail wholesale and Department store union, filed for a union election at a warehouse down in Alabama, in this town called Bessemer, right outside of Birmingham. Because there had never been a a union election at a a major Amazon facility like this with the unit that we call wall to wall, were like everybody inside there, pretty much outside of management, would be in the union if the union one.

And so this was like a really big deal, uh, not just for labor, but it had big advocations for Amazon. They want to keep unions from getting any toe hold inside their facilities. Right in the US, unions would have to unionize these facilities one by one, So it would still be a few thousand workers out of nearly a million in the US that would be covered by a union.

But the fear for a company like Amazon is that this is gonna spread, right that if if if a union can break into one facility, that they're gonna start popping up and winning elections at other facilities. So this became like really closely watched in the US, and it was kind of an unusual campaign because it was it was during the pandemic, so um, it was going to be a kind of long now and voting process where where both the union and and the company we're going

to be making their cases to workers. And so even though we knew that that Amazon did did not want unions, that they were going to try to keep unions out, this was kind of the first time really that Amazon was forced to kind of get its hands dirty in public, uh,

while they tried to fight off a union drive. Right right, maybe you can give us some idea of the union busting efforts to Amazon has going to When you look at what Amazon did, I view it as simply a scaled up version of what your typical American employer will do. Amazon basically has bottomless resources, so they could throw tons

of money at it. But what they did basically what any um, um you know, depocketed company was going to do, which is you fight kind of this this two pronged war one with with your lawyers right where you you bring in um, the best lawyers you can get, management side attorneys who are going to do whatever they can at the National Labor Relations Board to um slow this process down, UH, to throw up hurdles in front of the union. And that's that's what what Amazon did. They

hired Morgan Lewis. It's you know, the top or one of the top management side firms when you're dealing with the union. And the guy they had leading their litigation is his name is Harry Johnson. He used to be a Republican member of the National Labor Relations Board, which is like our Supreme Court um for for dealing with labor issues. So they really, you know, they got lawyers

from from the top of the game. And UM, you know, as you're doing that, UM, you know, you also as a company, you often want to run this sort of ground game inside your workplace where you're trying to so doubt about the union um uh, and and and sort of do everything you can legal or sometimes not legal,

to encourage a no vote. And so what Amazon did is they went out and hired union avoidance consultants who came in and and companies have to disclose this stuff to the government when they do it, and we know a little bit about UM, what Amazon went out and did. It's gonna be a while before we know more, just because of the disclosure process. But they hired a whole bunch of consultants who came in to hold what we

call captive audience meetings. This is where UM workers are are corralled into a room and a consultant or management or both get up there and give a speech about, you know, basically, why the union sucks, why you don't want a union. UM. There's certain lines they can't go over. UM.

They can't interrogate you about your your union sympathies. They can't threaten your job if you vote for a union, But they can get really close to that line, and through careful language, they can kind of sow those doubts UM while while still kind of staying on the right side of the line. And so that's why you bring consultants into do that. And so Amazon had these meetings going on in the Best sumber warehouse every day for weeks in the in the run up to the vote.

I talked to workers who were in there, um, you know, multiple times. Uh, and it's it's it's a weird experience. I mean, I've talked to a lot of workers over the years who've gone through this, not just at Amazon but elsewhere, and it's it's very strange. You know, you have this this guy from the outside who comes in is kind of acting like he's your pal, like he's just there to answer questions and kind of clarify the process.

They always kind of put off the air of being neutral, of just wanting to provide you with information, But when you look at what they actually say, it's it's always um, you know, within with an anti union angle to it. Um. And this can be really effective in a lot of ways. It's sort of For one, it can help the the the employer know where certain workers stand. Right. So this is a was a big facility of nearly six thousand workers in the proposed bargaining unit. So if the union

one that would be nearly six thousand people in that union. UM, that is really large. We in the US, we like rarely see union elections on that scale anymore, you know, in part because of UM uh you know, the industrialization and and and a lot of bargaining units have just gotten smaller. So this was like a really big facility. So Amazon was holding tons of these meetings and they'd have people off to the side, and you know, I talked to workers who didn't know who who these people were.

Maybe they were managers, they didn't recognize them, Maybe they were in from other facilities. And Amazon did bring in a lot of people from corporate during the campaign to be around the warehouse that were managers from other facilities in UM and it was just kind of a strange environment. UM.

Sometimes workers would push back. I talked to a few who kind of got got sick of of you know, what they felt was was ridiculous propaganda, and so they would they would uh, you know, push back UM, you know, challenge the presenter and and talk about the goods unions, good unions could do UM. And I talked to one guy who who did that, and then he when he once he was back out on the floor. He had some union avoidance consultant coming over to talk to him,

and he just said it was weird. Man. He was like, he was like, I don't want to talk to you. Uh So it creates a very strange environment, but it can be really effective, especially in a place like Amazon. And this is really key to understanding any union campaign and an Amazon facility is the turnover there, right, sky

high turnover UM. New York Times had a number that they say they got internally that was over a yeah, staff turnover, right, worker turnover, and that's consistent with UM, with other numbers that have been done by outside analyses suggesting over a hundred percent. What that means is um, over the course of a year, the number of workers who quit or get fired is greater than the average

number of positions in that facility. Right. It doesn't mean that literally every worker leaves, but it means that they that if they have five thousand positions in there, then more than five thousand or more people passed through that warehouse in a year. That is a very high turnover

rate for the industry. And you know one reason, Frankly, I think it's part of of Amazon's early d n A was that, like, we didn't want this attachment to workers, like these places they run on algorithm, right, so the workers are like our plug and play right um. And and Bezos felt like, you know, workers just if they're just kind of there in a job for years, they get complacent. So this idea of like burning through workers is kind of part of part of like like the

Amazon theory, um. But it also is like a huge benefit when you're a company fighting an organizing drive, because you constantly have people passing through the door, um, and they don't have time to kind of uh, you know, develop sympathies with the union, and in this case, a lot of them never even heard the union's case. Right. You have the the union told me that they were under the assumption that they were losing sixty union cards

every week to turn over. And what they mean is that sixty workers who signaled they would support the union election we're going to leave naturally every week, either either quitting or getting fired, and so you gotta find new new support to replace that. So you're constantly treading water as people come in the door, trying to organize them and make your case to them. As a union. You know,

an Amazon of course knows that. And so people during this this um you know, mail and election, there were there were uh people you know coming in ahead of the election, UM who never heard from a union organizer, and in their first week on the job, they're going into these anti union meetings basically hearing uh, you know, how crumby the union is, and and and what a

bad idea would be to vote for the union. And so Amazon had this large scale sophisted campaign going on, in part down on the ground level in the air house, with these consultants in their consultants who were coached by managers and supervisors on on how to act around the workers and how to um you know, essentially uh you know,

turn out no votes. While at the same time they had they had lawyers at the highest level that we're trying to um throw up barriers, um, you know, inflate the bargaining unit, make the union union, the proposed bargaining unit as large as possible so that the union would have to be organizing all these all these other workers, UM, and just slow things down legally so that um inside the warehouse, the company has the time to get their

anti union campaign up and running. So yeah, this was like a pretty uh sophisticated campaign, I think, and probably a very expensive one. It's gonna be a little while before we know how much Amazon spent on the consultants. Well, we'll learn that sometime next year. A lot of people I have talked to think, um, you know, it's probably almost certainly in the millions. Um, possibly possibly eight figures, but we'll never know, you know, what they spent on

on the lawyers, because that's not subject to disclosure. So this was like and you know, defeat the union at all costs. Yeah, it's it's very aggressive. Um. I was reading the thing I think it was to Die actually or yesterday, where a court had basically said in the US that union workers were allowed to kind of push that union voting ahead again because the court ruled the Amazon had basically unfairly kind of influenced the decision. Um, did you see about that? That's right? Yeah, So this

this was news the pro clast night. Basically, the National Labor Relations Board, a regional director there um ruled that that Amazon broke the law during the election, that they you know, basically tainted the democratic process, and that the workers are entitled to do over vote. Um, I think it's likely that second vote will happen because the the Labor Board now has a democratic majority that's more favorable

to workers. So I think my sense is that this this ruling will will be upheld and that another another vote will will come. But it's really an illustration of why why companies like Amazon really pushed the limits, so to unpack sort of what Amazon did here, um to to kind of spoil the election. This was, like I said,

this happened during the pandemic. This vote, and so the Labor Board wanted to do a mail in ballot right where normally, in normal times you're gonna have this election over two or three days at the big warehouse where there's a little polling place and workers can go in when they have a minute and fill out their ballot and drop it in the box. Here, it was all gonna be done by mail. Amazon didn't like that, and I think the reason is because Amazon wanted this election

to be conducted on their home turf. Right, there's a lot of advantages to doing this at the work site. Right when the workers gonna have to go in and vote, they're gonna walk by all their managers, they're gonna be around all the propaganda. And there was propaganda all over the warehouse. Um you know, all this sort of like subtle anti union stuff and and um you know even when when you went to the bathroom, uh you were you were seeing these these um posters and flyers about

you know, do you really want to be paying dudes? Um. So, you know, Amazon wanted to have have that that that vote on the on the home field. Um, they didn't get it. So what they did they basically, um, you know, arranged to have the the US Postal Service install a mailbox on on the warehouse site, right in the parking lot. And they um surrounded this thing with their with their you know Amazon propaganda. You know, come here, have your

voice heard. Um. The labor board had had specifically said they did not want, you know, ballot drop boxes on site for the election. So Amazon went out on its own. And there's there's we know that they um, you know, converse with the US Postal Service to have this arranged. Um in mind you there's already you know, business arrangements

between Amazon and the US Postal Service. Um. So so this was um upset the union quite a bit and everything we've seen so far of the union's claims that this post postal box tainted the process has been upheld so far, you know by labor officials. So there was a fear that by having this there um that that there was there was fears that the that the postal box was being surveiled. Right this is right outside Amazon's door.

And what the Labor board official yesterday had to say about this was that was that she had specifically said she did not want ballot drop boxes there and that what Amazon did here was essentially hijacked the process. Amazon's defense has been, well, we just wanted to kind of boost turnout, sure everyone everyone uh you know, had their voices heard, just make it easier to vote. And they said, well, look that's not your job that that's our job is

to administer the election. And so I was a little surprised that Amazon went so far as to do this, this this ballot box routine. Um I I but again this goes back to wanting to win this this election at all costs, and certainly on on the first go round, I think Amazon wanted to not only win, but but to run up the numbers. And they did, you know, they essentially, you know, defeated the union. It was around a two to one margin, although some challenge ballots were

never open. But you know, Amazon, really they wanted to crush this. They wanted to run up the numbers and and make it look futile to try to do this. And so what we're seeing now is that it's looking like they broke the law to do it. They broke the law to do it. So Amazon so eager to union bust that they literally broke the law to try and stop one forming. But remember, like they said in

the internal training video, they're not anti union union. Now the courts have ruled that the union Dave Jamison mentioned there are going to be given another chance at voting to properly unize Amazon. It's safe to say this is definitely not going anywhere, despite Amazon putting literally millions of dollars into trying to stop this. So let's see what happens. Will keep you updated here at Megacorp. Mega Corp. Is made by my production company H eleven for Cool Zone Media.

It's written, researched, and produced by myself, Jake Hanrahan. It was also produced by Sophie Lichtman. Music is by some black graphics by Adam Doyle and sound engineering by splicing block. If you want to get in touch, follow me on social media at Jake Underscore Hanrahan. That's h A n I A h A n m